The present invention relates to apparatus for manipulating cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos (with or without filter tips), filter rod sections and analogous rod-shaped articles which constitute or form part of smokers' products. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for manipulating rod-shaped articles of the above outlined character (hereinafter called cigarettes for short) between one or more producing machines (e.g., makers of plain cigarettes or filter cigarette making machines) and one or more consuming or processing machines (e.g., packing machines). Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus which can compensate for variations in requirements of one or more variable-capacity processing or consuming machines and for variations in the output of one or more variable-capacity producing machines by embodying or by cooperating with a facility for temporary storage of the surplus between the producing and processing machines.
It is already known to provide one or more reservoirs between the outlet of a producing machine and the inlet of a processing machine, and to design the reservoir or reservoirs in such a way that they can store several layers of cigarettes, normally a number of layers slightly or greatly exceeding the number of layers in the stream of cigarettes which is transported from the producing machine to the processing machine. Reference may be had, for example, to commonly owned copending application Ser. No. 804,332 (filed June 7, 1977 by Base et al.) and to commonly owned copending applications Ser. Nos. 804,305, 804,333, 804,337 and 804,338 (all filed June 7, 1977 by Tolasch et al.). As a rule, the cigarettes which issue from one or more producing machines or makers are transported in the form of a multi-layer stream whose height is a fraction of the height of the stack of cigarettes in the reservoir. A channel (e.g., a duct) is provided to normally deliver the multi-layer stream of cigarettes to the magazine or magazines of one or more processing machines. When the processing machine(s) cannot accept the entire output of the producing machine(s), e.g., because one or more processing machines are out of commission, the multi-layer stream is introduced into the reservoir or reservoirs whereby the height of such stream increases to match the level of the stack of cigarettes in the reservoirs(s). If the requirements of the processing machine(s) cannot be satisfied by the momentary output of the producing machine(s), the reservoir or reservoirs are caused to discharge their contents to supplement the output of the producing machine(s).
It has been found that cigarettes are likely to be damaged (especially defaced or crushed) during introduction into a reservoir wherein the height of the stack exceeds the maximum height of the cigarette stream. Furthermore, the cigarettes are likely to change their orientation during expulsion or removal from the reservoir(s) for introduction into the processing machine(s) in the event of a breakdown or slowdown of one or more producing machines.